Joint Enterprise and Murder
| Author | Simon Parsons |
| Published date | 01 December 2012 |
| Date | 01 December 2012 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1350/jcla.2012.76.6.804 |
| Subject Matter | Comment |
COMMENT
Joint Enterprise and Murder
Simon Parsons*
Keywords Complicity; Assisting and encouraging; Joint enterprise;
Murder
It has been said that the law relating to joint enterprise is complex,
controversial and harsh.1This comment will explain why this is so when
considering the relationship between joint enterprise and murder. The
term ‘complicity’ will be used here as a general term encompassing aid,
abet, counsel or procure (i.e. accessorial liability)2and joint enterprise.
To keep this comment at a reasonable length some knowledge of law of
complicity will be assumed. The issue of complicity arises when two or
more persons are involved in committing of a criminal offence. This
seems relatively straightforward, but the factual simplicity hides the
difficult legal questions involved. These difficulties centre on two issues.
First, there is the question of whether assisting or encouraging crime is
a body of law separate from where there is a joint enterprise or common
purpose to commit a crime. Secondly, when is there secondary liability
for a collateral or ‘parasitic’ crime to a joint enterprise? It will be helpful
to start by defining the term ‘joint enterprise’.
What is a joint enterprise?
In R vA3Hughes LJ defined ‘joint enterprise’ as follows:
The expressions ‘common enterprise’ or ‘joint enterprise’ may be used
conveniently by the courts in at least three related but not identical
situations:
i) Where two or more people join in committing a single crime, in circum-
stances where they are, in effect, all joint principals, as for example when
three robbers together confront the security men making a cash delivery.
ii) Where D2 aids and abets D1 to commit a single crime, as for example
where D2 provides D1 with a weapon so that D1 can use it in a robbery, or
drives D1 to near to the place where the robbery is to be done, and/or waits
around the corner as a getaway man to enable D1 to escape afterwards.
iii) Where D1 and D2 participate together in one crime (crime A) and in the
course of it D1 commits a second crime (crime B) which D2 had foreseen he
might commit. These scenarios may in some cases overlap.4
In the first situation the law of complicity is straightforward and clear as
the two or more persons are joint principals in a joint enterprise. In the
* Senior Lecturer, Southampton Solent University; e-mail:
Simon.Parsons@solent.ac.uk.
1 Professor David Ormerod commentary to R vYemoh [2009] Crim LR 888 at 894 and
to R v Lewis [2010] Crim LR 870 at 872.
2 Accessories and Abettors Act 1861, s. 8.
3 [2010] EWCA Crim 1622.
4 Ibid. at [7].
463The Journal of Criminal Law (2012) 76 JCL 463–471
doi:10.1350/jcla.2012.76.6.804
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